Twitter brings Kokoda Track campaign to life

An historian and filmmaker is hoping to attract new and young audiences to the story of the Kokoda Track using social media.

In 1942 the Papua Campaign became the main focus of the Australian military efforts in World War 2, with real concerns that if they did not turn the Japanese back, the Australian mainland would be invaded.

At the time Australia's main infantry force were deployed in the Middle East, fighting with the British, with the territory of Papua defended by militia and conscript forces.

It's now over 70 years since the Papua campaign began, and while walking the Kokoda Track has become a rite of passage for many young Australians, how the battles unfolded, the background of many of the young men taking part and the impact on locals are not as well known.

Now, historian Patrick Lindsay wants to change that, and he's turned to Twitter to tell the story of the campaign, unfolding in real time.

"[The soldiers] mostly joined up, they mostly volunteered, but they volunteered to join a militia unit, which meant that they would defend Australia, rather than be sent overseas necessarily too, with the AIF," he said.

"So what they'd forgotten was the sort of fine print that Papua New Guinea was Australian territory, so they found themselves on a boat."

There are two teams of traffic where there's only room for one. Coming back is line of troops who've just been relieved after a month's fighting near Kokoda. They're tired, muddy and unshaven, and only kids of 19 and 20. They've done a grand job and earned their rest.

ABC war correspondent Chester Wilmot, reporting on the Kokoda campaign in 1942

Mr Lindsay says for a younger generation used to getting information in small bite sized portions, social media platforms like Twitter are a great way to bring the campaign to life.

"The thing I'm trying to bring across that the revisionist historians would have us believe that we were never really in great danger in Australia and you can always look back with 20-20 hindsight and make it whatever you like," he said.

"The reality on the ground in Australia and in PNG was that everyone was expecting there could be an invasion at any time and the same with the Japanese soldiers.

"I interviewed 17 Japanese veterans back in 1991 in Japan, and they represented a fairly solid proportion of the ones who survived...[and] they all believed they were coming to Australia."

Mr Lindsay has also launched an app 'Kokoda', to tell the story of the campaign.

"You click in to the various places along this map, and the story of what happened there unfolds and it incorporates video, so you've got...interview grabs from the diggers, so they're actually telling their own stories," he said.

"We've got 3D interactive maps, so you can get a feel for the terrain, which is some of the toughest terrain in the world.

"I'm hoping that particularly kids, who... don't learn that in a linear way normally nowadays, they'll dip in and they'll dip out and...find out about this."

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and it looks as though Christmas Day will just be another day in the week for our fellows here. I guess...the celebration will just have to wait.